Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Old Days: Matheson Cove Style



Wood smoke spiraling like India ink
from a log cabin flips back
a page from the past.

Grandma Minnie bowed
over a quilting frame
pieced a Lone Star quilt.

Light ricocheted through
red-checked curtains,
sorghum syrup glittered

like gold on the kitchen table.
Grandpa Bob plowed a cornfield
with mules, raised a big crop.

Snowflakes twirled feathers
across Shewbird Mountain:
hog-killing at Thanksgiving.

Homemade sausage, rendering lard,
hams cured in the smokehouse.
Sunrise to sunset

mountain folks worked farms,
at harvest they held a hoedown
in the old red barn.

by:  Brenda Kay Ledford

Published in: Pancakes in Heaven,
November, 2016




Granddaddy Bob and Minnie Matheson Ledford


Hams cured in the Smoke House.





I hope all my blogger friends will have a very happy Thanksgiving with their friends and family!


It is indeed a blessing to blog with my friends.  I appreciate very much your visiting my blog and your kind comments.




10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good Afternoon and Happy November. Such a delightful poem and photos. This is a favorite time of the year for me. God bless your Thanksgiving.

Pam said...

I love your beautiful poetry and photos! My dads mothers name was Minnie. I never met her, she passed away when my dad was about 4 or 5. I would have loved to have known her. We visited her grave up in Unaka a few weeks ago. The cemetery where she is buried is such a lovely and peaceful resting place for her.
Thank you for visiting my blog and leaving such sweet comments, I really appreciate it! It is such a nice feeling to know people appreciate and admire my work. You are equally as talented!
Pam
scrap-n-sewgranny.blogspot.com

Pam said...

I love your beautiful poetry and photos! My dads mothers name was Minnie. I never met her, she passed away when my dad was about 4 or 5. I would have loved to have known her. We visited her grave up in Unaka a few weeks ago. The cemetery where she is buried is such a lovely and peaceful resting place for her.
Thank you for visiting my blog and leaving such sweet comments, I really appreciate it! It is such a nice feeling to know people appreciate and admire my work. You are equally as talented!
Pam
scrap-n-sewgranny.blogspot.com

Connie said...

I love the descriptive words and imagery in your poetry, Brenda. You paint such a lovely picture. I really enjoyed your photos too. I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!

lil red hen said...

Oh how I love all those memories! Things are so different now, and not for the better it seems. I do so appreciate the comments you leave for me, even when I've been absent from blogging for over a month now. I'd love a log cabin like the one in your header picture! I'd set up a quilt frame and shut myself off from the world. lol

Cranberry Morning said...

This is just lovely!!

Hootin Anni said...

That first stanza(?) is great...I can see the smoke swirling and it DOES take me back to the Colorado mountain cabins so often seen in my youth.

Yesteryear Embroideries said...

How lovely your words go with such wonderful photos! Wishing you a blessed Thanksgiving as well!

Elaine/Muddling Through said...

Love the pictures and that poem is just beautiful! So many memories. My grandparents had a smokehouse, but stopped using it when I was young, but I remember seeing those hams hanging (and how good they were!).

magnoliasntea said...

Good Morning Brenda!
I don't know how I missed this post. My blog reader sometimes skips, I think.
I loved the photos and reading your wonderful words, that always take me back to a time when life was a bit harder but not nearly as complicated.
Thank you for sharing!
Toni